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“What? Why?” I tried to force my eyes open, but they were swollen shut and weighed a hundred pounds each. Where was Wild? Yeah, he’d lost his temper and the bloodlust had taken over, but we’d just lost Bullet and I didn’t blame him for losing control. But surely he’d worked through the worst of the rage now, and I couldn’t imagine him justleavingme here.
We were friends. He wouldn’t.
“You have a job to do, Moros,”the voice said, ignoring my question.
“Here’s an idea, mystery voice. You do the job. I’m having a real fucking day here, you know? I’m pretty sure my nose is broken, and Wild is missing. And my friend is dead. Or a little bit dead? I don’t even fucking know. The bond to my girl is gone, and I don’t know where she is either, I’m just hoping Dare is keeping her safe. I have shit to do.”
What felt like cold stone pressed down on my face, sliding down either side of my nose.
“Hey, what—”
Crunch.
I gasped as pain ricocheted up from my nose, spreading to every other part of my body. Forcing my eyes open, I found some kind of immortal being directly in my face, staring impassively down at me.
She was wearing a toga-looking dress made of heavy dark blue fabric, pulled half over her head like a veil so only the front of her dark brown curls were visible, framing her face. She wasn’t beautiful necessarily, but she was ethereal looking, with porcelain skin and wide golden eyes.
“Your nose is fixed. Will you stop your incessant whining now? You have a job to do.”
“Whoareyou?” I cradled the poor aching bridge of my nose with my fingertips, silently cursing every deity to ever exist. Interfering motherfuckers. She hadn’t fixed anything else either, I still felt like I’d been repeatedly run over by an 18-wheeler.
“I am Arete, of course.”
Arete.That rang a bell, though my brain was taking its sweet time in figuring out why.
“Well, good for you,” I muttered, my head spinning. “Where am I?”
Now that the world was coming into focus, it was clear that I wasn’t in Kansas—aka, the ruins at Ephesus—anymore. Great. Just fucking great.
Had I died?
No, this didn’t look like the underworld. The underworld had a purple sky, I’d seen it for myself. The sky here was a pinkish gold, and it looked more like the heavenly realm place we’d met Nyx and Gaia at, but there was no looming mountain of palaces above us. It was just a garden.
A surreal, definitely not human garden, with flowers the size of boulders in shades of gold and peach, glinting in the light like jewels. It looked like some kind of angelic fever dream painting, and I half expected to see a fat little cherub float past above me, mini bow and arrow in hand.
“Where am I?” I asked again, unsuccessfully keeping the hard edge of panic out of my voice.
“Back in the Realm of the Gods, of course.” Arete sounded impatient, peering down at me like I was a peculiar insect and she wasn’t sure whether to squash me or not. “As I keep saying, you have a job to do. Travel is more expedient this way, and you have given me enough of a blood sacrifice to stay at your side for the time being.”
“How generous of me,” I muttered. “My blood doesn’t even do that. Gracie’s does. I’m just a regular daimon.”
“There is nothing regular about any of you.” Arete tutted. “You chose to keep your agathos. Chose your soul bond.”
“Well, yeah. Obviously. Grace ismysoul bond—even without the bond.” My throat tightened painfully. As much as my muscles screamed in protest, I forced myself to sit upright, catching my breath for a moment before climbing to my feet, narrowly avoiding hitting my head on a mysterious giant flower. “I’m a daimon. Daimons are possessive. It’s the mostregularthing about me.”
“You clearly don’t know what a soul bond actually is,” Arete said mildly, apparently content to watch me struggle.Fucking immortals.
“I know just fine. I have a soul bond.”Hada soul bond. The pain I felt in the rest of my body was nothing compared to the gaping emptiness in my chest where the bond had been. I had to get back to Grace; not knowing where she was, how she was feeling, was making me lose my mind. “Why am I here? I can’t do whatever this job is you have for me, I have to get back to Grace. Where is Wild? Is he in this realm too?”
“The Keres has his own job to do.” She paused, looking somehow thoughtful and disinterested all at once. “With the pit to Tartarus open, the possibility of the prophecy being fulfilled isreal, in a way it never has been in the past. We all must do our parts. Immortals who have watched and waited for an opportunity to challenge the Great Mother’s authority finally have the chance to do so.”
Pit?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I looked around, trying to see through the thick shimmering bushes and pearlescent flowers, seeking out an exit. “What pit? What is Wild doing? Is he okay? He shouldn’t be alone right now.”
Arete took a step forward, her hand snapping out to grab my forearm with surprising speed. She brushed her icy thumb over a patch of grazed skin, filled with rocky debris from where I’d scraped it on the ground avoiding Wild’s next hit.
“Do you really care to know? The Keres injured you. Why should you care about where he is or what he’s doing?”
